Industrial electrical capacity-battery.



G. GILES.

lNDUSTRiAL ELECTRICAL CAPACITY BATTERY.

Vivi Y I Zal FY5912. Pg? 5' 2 SHEETffE:

Patented Feb. 5,1918

APPLICATION FILED OCT. 16' 1916.

v e. GILES. INDUSTRIAL ELECTRICAL CAPACITY BATTERY.

Patented Feb. 5, 1918.

F27$PEETS7;EET 2 75 APPLICATION FILED OCT. 16. 1916. 1,255,597!

Illlll IIHII l l L J UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE. v

INDUSTRIAL ELECTRICAL CAPACITY-BATTERY.

. Specification of Letters Patent.

Patented Feb. 5, 1918.

Application flled october 16, 1916. Serial No. 125,947.

Z '0 all whom it may concern:

Be it known that I, Gnonons GILES, acitizen of the United States of America, r esidin at Fribourg, Canton of Fribourg, 1n theC onfederation of Switzerland, have invented certain new and useful Improvements in Industrial Electrical Capacity- Batteries, of which the following is a specification.

This invention relates to electrical capacity-batterie s.

7 It is known that the main difficulty 'in the manufacture of electrical condensers arises from the ,fact that the disruptive stress is much greater at the margin of the armature than at any other part of surface of the dielectric owing to the needle effect. Several contrivances however may be employed to overcome this inconvenience.

- (a). The dielectric may be reinforced at the mar in of the armature. ance is e cient, but unfortunately the break ing voltage approximately increases as the square root of thickness of the dielectric. Thus, for instance in order to answer to a double voltage, the thickness of the dielectric at the margin of armature must be increased four times.

(6), The margin of the armature may be formed with a conveniently rounded conducting surface which will eliminate the needle effect at the margin of armature.

(0),. The condensers may be arranged in series. In order to double for instance the resistance against destruction by this contrivance, it will be suflicient to arrange two condensers in series, that is to say to double the thickness of the dielectric.

This latter contrivance has the advantage over the first of requiring .a smaller total thickness of the dielectric at the mar'gin of the armature. ,However it might seem at the first look more inconvenient with regard to the thickness needed for the body of the condenser. In the case of the first contrivance there might be given for instance to the condenser the shape of a bottle whereof the dielectric would have the thickness of one millimeter at the body and four millimeters at the neck which would 've a breaking resistance twice as high as 1f the dielectric had everywhere a thickness of two'millimeters. The capacity however This contrivof this condenser would be that corresponding to one having a thickness of dielectric of one millimeter. In the case of the third contrivance two condensers with a dielectric of a uniform thickness of one millimeter would be put in series, which would give the same resistance at the margin of armature, but a capacity not higher than the one corresponding to a thickness of dielectric of two millimeters and representing therefore half of the one obtained with the first contrivance.

It must .be mentioned here that this inconvenience, the smaller capacity, is only a seemin one. Indeed, if the dielectric of a bottle-s aped condenser should be made for to construct a condenser to resist, during V prolonged service a tension of 12000 volts with a breaking tension of 40000 volts at the margin of armature, thedielectric must have at the body a thickness of one millimeter and at the margin of the armature of four times half a millimeter, that is two millimeters. The same result may be obtained by the arrangement in series of two condensers whereof the dielectric has a uniform thickness of half a millimeter. The two contrivances of examplesa and 0 will both permit the use of a dielectric, such as glass for, instance, for a given capacity of the condenser or condensers.

The ob'ect of the present invention is an industrial electrical capacity-battery consisting of one or, more elements each formed by at least two condensers set in series in a peculiar manner. For this purpose, the different armatures of each'zof the elements are located on the two surfaces of a common dielectric plate, so, as to form with this plate condensers arranged in steps afterthe order of the increasing potentials in one of the longitudinal dimensions of the plate (height, width, length, as may be required by the case).

On the other hand an industrial capacity battery is usually and in principle composed of a certain number of elements connected in parallel each being provided with its safety fuse so that the destruction of one does not necessarily cause the removal from service of the whole battery. This arrangement is shown in Figure 6 of the annexed drawing. The battery consists for example of three separate elements 1, 2, 3, each of which is provided with its own safety fuse r 1*, r inserted between the conductors 0, 39, between which the operating voltage exists. The fuses must be made so as not to blow by the action of discharges of high tension which may arise from atmospheric disturbances when the battery is used as a lightning arrester or from other causes when the battery is used in an alternating current circuit. In another respect the fuseshave to be made so as to sustain the whole working voltage. for indeed, if one of the elements is destroyed, the lower support of the fusible wire will have the potential of the conductor p while the upper support will have the one of the conductor 0. Likewise a distance answering to the working voltage must exist between their lower support and the corresponding supports of the neighboring fuse or fuses. For this reason the elements 1, 2, 3 have been put at a relatively great dis tance from each other in order to avoid arcs being formed between any of the elements in times of accident. Moreover for high tensions the length of fuse becomes very considerable because this length increases much more rapidly than the voltage. The batter must therefore be increased both in widt and in height.

This difficulty of bulkiness may be overcome by the invention and to this end between certain armatures of the condenser succeeding each other in each element fuses are inserted in order to put said armatures in series and are arranged on the same face of the plate and within the extent of the same.

Each of the plates may thus be provided with a certain number of fuses instead of each element having but one.

The fuses may be made of metallic wire held by a band of insulating matter and partly surrounded with metallic bands intended to insure contact with the armatures when being laid down upon the same. The fusible wire may also be laid closely down upon the dielectric plate and may be maintained in place by a thin metallic layer which is secured by a spraying process, thereby forming the armature and covering the fuses at certain places. It may also be constructed as follows: On one or on both faces of a dielectric plate a metallic body designed to form the fuse is put on at the very place which is to be occupied later on by the armatures, then the metal which is to form the armatures is deposited by a spraying process and will cover the dielectric plate, and also the body forming the fuse, thus maintaining the latter in place. The parts of the body at the places where no metallic connection ought to exist may then be easily removed.

The corresponding armatures or fuses located on the faces of contact of each pair of insulating plates of a group may be replaced two by two by one single armature or one single fuse.

The element or elements of a battery may be inclosed within a cover made totally or partly of insulating material and filled with a mass impregnated with an insulating matter.

Each element may consist not of a single plate of dielectric matter, but of a pile of several plates set closely together with their faces one against the other and provided with armatures between the single plates, so as to form groups of condensers arranged in series transversely to the battery, that is in a sense along a line standing vertically upon the faces of the plates, the groups themselves being arranged in series according to one of the two surface dimensions (length andv width) of the faces, by means of the fuses.

The battery may also be composed of one or more groups of elements each element comprising dielectric plates set closely together with their faces against each other and fitted on their faces with armatures and fuses so as to have an armature and a fuse in common to two adjacent plates and further comprising protecting plates made of insulating matter, all these plates being inclosed within a cover of insulating matter leaving free however the ends of the plates at the two extremities of a group and being provided there with metallic caps whereon the electrical connections are fixed said caps forming with the cover a closed casing in the inside of which all hollow spaces are filled up with insulating material.

If there are several groups of such elements in a battery they may be placed within supports maintaining the groups sufiiciently far from each other to permit of the air freely circulating around the same.

In order to more fully explain the nature of the invention the annexed drawings illustrate several working examples of the battery.

Fig. 1 is battery.

Figs. 2, 3, 4, 5 are diagrannnatic sections through four forms of working examples.

a diagram ofa known form of of a attery.

Figs. 12 and 13 respectively are sections on lines A-A, B-B of Fig. 11.

Fig. 14 relates to the manufacture of the form, shown in Figs. 11, 12 and 13, and Fig. 15 is a section on line CO of Fig. 14:. 1

Fig. 16 is a vertical section of an assem-.

bled group of units as illustrated inFig. 19.

Fig. 17 is a bottom plan of the top member or cap as illustrated in Fig. 16.

Fig. 18is a side elevation of the form of battery shown in Figs. 16 and 19, and

Fig. 19 is a cross section taken on line D D, Fig. 16.

Heretofore the third contrivance mentioned in the introduction has been employed according to Fig. 1, two condensers being set in series, and each consistin of two armatures a, b, a, b and -a dielectric plated. The two plates d are separated from each other.

In a first workin example of the battery (Fig. 2) a single ielectric plate (1 is provided on its two faces with four armatures a, b, a, b of the two condensers arranged in series. 1

As the two armatures b, a on the. same face of plate d are electrically connected there is nothing to prevent uniting the said armatures into one a b as is shown in Fi 3.- The number of electric condensers arranged for voltage and .having one d1electr1c plate d in common may be greater than,two and may for instance be equal to four (Fig. 4). The armatures of the succeeding condeiisers designed. to be connected electrically are united into one piece. p

Owing to this arran ement plate d has a resistance exactly equa to ,four times that of a structure in which there is only one armature on each of its faces. If this plate has a thickness of 1 millimeter, the sum ofresistances between the edges of the extreme armatures is four times the one obtained with one single condenser whereof the plate has the same thickness of 1- millimeter and is equal tothat of a single condenser whereof the dielectric is four millimeters in thicknoss at the body and has a reinforced margin of about 16 millimeters. This arrang ment will therefore permit construction of capacity-batteries for very high voltages; a capacity of 100000 volts for instance being obtained by the arrangement in series of (Fig. 4) one half of the total difference of potential acts between the oints g and h and, the other half between t e points z' and .k. I On the facelm of the plate (1 this difference of the total potential is distributed between three intervals. This even distribution is very important and very advantageous. If batterles have to be made for high voltages it is very difiicult to .avoid marginal discharges between the edges of armatures along the dielectric for the needed distances between these margins increase very much faster than the voltages. By an arrangement in series of the condensers of capacity on the same dielectric plate these distances are proportional to the voltages.

The advantage would naturally be still greater if there were a greater number of condensers to be put in series; for instance eight or ten on the same dielectric plate.

It is likewise advantageous to arrange in series on the same dielectric plate all the armatures of the condensers and for the following reason: Even in the case where this dielectric plate is of glass, it will have nearly a'uniform thickness throughout its whole extent, which will insure a uniform distribution of potential between, the different condensers. On the other hand two plates of glass seldom have the same thickness, whereore there will result a difference of distribution of potential between the condensers in series.

According to Fig. 5 the electrical capacity-battery 1S, composed of a certain number of elements 1, 2, 3 arranged in parallel between the conductors o, 1 between which the voltage exists for which the battery is Therefore if one of these elements should be put out of service by an accident the other two would still continue to serve. Each of these elements comprises as in Fig. 3 adielectric plate d. On one of the two faces of this plate, the parts of the armatures, a, b, of two condensers set in series, are located. while on the other face of the plate the other parts 'of armatures are located, and are united in a single armature, a? b. The plates are placed vertically and parallel to each other within a casing a made of insulating matter and are embedded within a solid ins'ulating mass (1 which will insure the perfect insulation of the whole. In order to introduce this mass into the casing it' is liquefied pose. The mass will become solid after cool- %y measuring the capacity of each element and by fixmg the number of the same, a capacity of any given value may be easily obtained.

Any other suitable matter than glass may be employed as a dielectric material and a casing ma or may not be employed.

In the fth form of battery (Fig. 7) certain armatures are connected two to two by fuses. Each fuse w is composed of a metallic wire 8 (Fig. 8) led in a zigzag path between two series of notches t, t out within the edges of a strip of paper. At certain intervals the strip and the wire are surrounded by a collar u formed'of thin sheet metal, for instance of tin which is designed to insure the contacts of the fuse. This fuse strip is cut on the dotted lines '11. Fig. 7 represents two plates with the armatures provided with this form of fuses. As will be seen this figure only differs from Fig. 4 by having the armatures (1 b, 5 a, 0 (P out in two. These parts of the armatures are metallically connected by the fuses w. The various dielectric plates are pressed together so as to bring the fuses to into contact with the armatures of the opposed faces of the two plates and then the impregnating mass.

is introduced to fill up the hollow spaces.

By this arrangement the following advantages are obtained:

(1). Great reduction of the bulkiness. (2). The arrangement of a great number of rows of fuses set in parallel.

(3). If one plate alone is destroyed only this Plate and the adjacent plate are put out of service in the circuit so that a whole grou of elements remains working. (4 It is very difficult to construct a fu for 100000 volts and very easy to make one for 20000 -volts. By the way indicated a fuse for 100000 is replaced by five for 20000 volts.

It would be important to employ as dielectric plates window glass having a thickness of about two millimeters as it IS cheaper than the thicker glasses. This thin glass is destroyed at about 30000 volts, presents very little heating at 15000 .volts, and insures a safe working at 7,000 to 10000 volts. It would therefore answer very well for a working voltage of 7500 volts, and for one hours trial at 15000 volts or one minutes trial at 22500 volts. If it is desired to have a voltage of 100000 .volts between the extreme armatures of the condensers of one and the same dielectric plate there must be employed v which would give great a height of the the succeedin .necessary to employ a dielectric plate of greater thickness; but it must be observed that if a plate of twice the thickness should be employed the resistance a ainst destruction would only be increase at about 40-. per cent. because this resistance increases approximately as the square root of the thickness. The use of glass would therefore be bad in this case.

In order. to improve the conditions for using it and in order to double the resistance when doubling the thickness of the glass the arrangement according to Figs. 9 and 10 may be employed. T e armatures a (l -b 3 and z 2 of the various. condensers are located on one of the faces of three glass-plates d, d, d as shown in Fi 10 each for instance two millimeters thic and the three plates set arallel toeach other at small intervals. hese armatures are dis laced out of line with regard to each 0t er as is shown by the drawing. The armatures b 0 and w, y are connected together two to two by fuses w applied like the armatures against the lates 1, 2 and 3 as shown in Fig. 5. The w ole is embedded within an insu ating matter which also fills the spaces between the plates.

Any number of elements thus formed may be employed for a battery of capacity. and the fuses may also be made in any other manner than that shown and described.

The element shown in the Figs. 11 to 13 consists of three condensers arranged in series, the various armatures a, a, b, b, c, c of said condensers being all of like dimensions and being fixed to the plate by means of a spraying process, are located on the two faces of the common dielectric plate 01 so as to form with the latter condensers set stepwise in the sense of the longitudinal extension of the plate and in the sense of increasing, potentials. The armatures a and b of the one of the faces and b and 0 of the other face are connected two to two by fuses 8 applied directly against the said plate 41. ThlS fuse consists of cylindrical metallic wire made for instance of silver and running at a under these armatures so as to be ke t in place thereby on plate d.

etween the armatures a and c and the plate d are likewise the parts a of the wire which are of no use and have remained from the proces of manufacturing the battery.

By the fact that the fuses a are inserted between the armatures a and b, b and c of condensers on the two faces of plate d a the height taken by fuses r, r, r in Fig..6. has been gained; for the distance to'be maintained between these arms.- tures is given by the voltage which is distributed between the .various condensers and does not have to be increased on account of the insertion of the fuses. thickness of the element has been reduced to a minimum on account of the fact that the fuses s are directly applied against the plate (Z and are maintamed. in place'by the armatures themselves, which being ut on by the spraying process, are extreme y thin.

It must be observed that in the Fi 11 to 13 the relative dimensions of'the ielectric plate d, of the armatures and .fuses do not correspond to the realdimensions, as

I they are exaggerated for clearness sake.

This working form of a battery may be manufactured as follows: I

Two wires s--s (FigsQl and 15) are placed directly upon the plate d and extend over the spaces ,which are to be occupied by the armatures a""a,' b, b, c, c and are thus stretched over the whole len h of the two "deposited on both sides and upon the free spaces of the plate d. Therefore the metal will not only cover the said plate but also the parts a of the wires 8-0 within the space of the openingrs and'will secure said wires to the plate. hen the framings 5, 6 are removed and likewise the parts of the wires 8-8 which are not covered with metal and which arenot needed for connecting any two armatures. These parts are those which are between the edge of the plate d and the armatures a, a, c, c and those between the armatures a and b, b and 0 Thus besides the parts 8 of the wires only the fuses 8 will be left.

The element or elements which constitute the battery are then embedded within an insulatingmass.

The spraying of the metal may be effected by the well known Schoop process and by means of a Schoop pistol. The latter is an apparatus projecting finely pulverized metal obtained by the melting of a wire by means of a blow pipe and carried in the shape of metallic vapors by a strong gaseous current against the plate. Any other suitable process of projection may be employed. a

The number of condensers in each element 5 may be different from three and the number of fuses different from two. The armatures of the condensers need not have like dimensions and the fuses may be formed by a. noncylindrical metallic body.

The number of elements taken to form a battery according to this invention may be one, two, three or more. The element or Besides the total a, a, 6 c and a fuse w. These armatures and fuses lie within the plane of contact between every two adjacent plates and therefore every two armatures and fuses are combined into one as is shown in 'Fig. 19. On the outer faces of the block formed by the plates set closely together there are provided two protectingl plates 11 of glass and of the same size as t e plates (1. All the plates d, llare surrounded by a cover 12 made for instance of paper which is in two layers "on' the right hand side and leaves free the margins of the plates at the two extreme ends of the block. The armatures a, c reaching beyond the margins of plates d are folded there over the same. Two metallic caps 13 are placed over the plates d, 11 and the cover 12, said caps serving as electrical connections of the elements owing to their contact with the armatures a, c and forming together with the cover 12 an air-tight casing because a tight joint 14 has been rovided between the caps and the cover, y means ofmonoxid of lead for instance. Each cap 13 is provided with a threaded ferrule 13 designed to receive a pipe for the introduction of the impregnated insulating matter and after the casing is filled receives a threaded conductor in order to have the group elec vtrically connected to others.

The bracket 9 wherein the various groups are held is composed of two frames, an upper one 9 and a lower one 9 held together by the pieces 9 of insulating materlal. These forms are provided at their ends and on an intermediate cross piece with teeth 9 between which the caps of the various groups are held fast. A conducting rod fastened at each framin and connected to the corresponding meta lic conductors of these groups insures the electrical connection between frame and armatures. Qwmg to the teeth 9" and to the openings in the frames there are spaces left between the groups 8 of elements so as to permit the circulation of air for cooling the batter The manufacture of this working orm of abattery may be carried out as follows:

On one of the plates 11 laid down horiof the block thus obtained and strips of a. suitable matter are laid into the spaces left between cover and caps, whereupon the joint is made perfectly tight by means of monoxid of lead or litharge. It remains now to screw to the ferrules 13 pipes of different length, one designed for the escape of air from the casing and the other designed for the introduction of the insulating mass.v The group of elements is thus put into an air tight insulating vat with the pipes and the opening of the cover 12 turned upward. The insulatin then takes place in. a thorough manner Ty first creating a vacuum within the vat and by introducing the insulating matter and then by restoring the atmospheric pressure again. The insulating matter will thereby be forced to thoroughly fill up all the free spaces even the smallest left within the casing formed by cover and caps. Y

It must be observed that in Fig. 17 the thickness of all the plates has been exaggerated for clearness sake.

I claim 1. In an industrial electrical capacity-battery an element comprising a delectric plate, armatures applied directly to the faces of the late, and fuses inserted between certain of the armatures of succeeding condensers and extending between same with portions thereof lying between the armatures thus connecte and the dielectric late.

2. In an industrial electrica capacity-battery an element comprisin I a dielectric plate, armatures applied dlrectl to the aces of the plate, fuses inserte between certain of the armatures of succeeding condensers and extending between same with portions thereof lying between the armatures thus connected and the dielectric plate,

and an insulating material in which the said dielectric plates and parts associated therewith are embedded.

3. In an industrial capacity-battery an element comprising a dielectric plate, ar-

matures applied to the faces of the plate so as to form therewith condensers stepped relatively to their varying potentials, andbodies designed to form fuses on t e respective surfaces of a dielectric plate and causing the same to extend across the spaces to be occupied by the armatures, depositing metallic bodies on the opposite sides of the dielectric plate to form condenser armaturs thereon and to extend over and secure the said fuse wires inposition on the plate, and

then removing art of the fuse wires from the plate and rom between the armatures thereon where no electrical connection is necessary In testimony whereof I have atfixed my signature in presence of two witnesses.

GEORGES GILES.

Witnesses:

W. Mnasnmmo,

Elm. EMMANUEL. 

